From Afterwit To Zemblanity
by Tineke
Summary: 100 rare words. 100 stories. Some may be Jackson/Lisa, some may not. I hope you enjoy them regardless.
1. Afterwit

**A/N:** A friend gave me a book of 100 rare words, and I got halfway through at realised that a surprising number of them gave me interesting ideas for stories, and the characters of Red Eye are ones I find interesting. So here we are, the stories won't necessarily contain the word, they will just embody the meaning, or be inspired by, and will contain the word with pronouciation and definition at the beginning of the chapter. So here we are. 100 rare words. 100 stories. From Afterwit To Zemblanity.

**--**

**Afterwit: **_AHF-tah -wit_

1. Later knowledge, the knowledge of riper years or later times.  
2. Second though, reconsideration.  
3. Wisdom after the event, that comes to late.  
4. Hence, recognition or former folly, practical repentance, a 'coming to one's senses'.

--

Lisa Reisert had always considered her life a good one. She'd made it past the roadblock that had been her rape, two years later she was still a wallflower, but it wasn't like she never talked to anyone. She was good at her job, she still kept in contact with her family, and her flat may not have been large, but she still had her own home.

But at this moment, locked in a airplane bathroom at 30,000 feet in the air, she was convinced that it was all for nothing, and now it was far too late to change anything. Jackson Rippner's bright, icy eyes held death in them.

__

Don't fight me.

She should have taken his advice, but god knows experience only comes after you need it. Instead she'd struggled, for moment she hadn't cared about her father, or the Keefe's, she would've done anything Jackson wanted just to get out of the bathroom and away from him. Her belated plea for her father hadn't helped her at all, neither did her attempt at appealing to his morals - she should've known he probably didn't have any - and finally she had done something that he didn't seem to be able to stand.

__

Someone do that to you? Is that what it is?

She had lied. And he had seen the fear and deceit in her eyes, and she had seen the cautious pity in his turn flat, and then cold.

__

You know what I think?

Then she lost track, she heard only brief excerpts of his speech, something about truthfulness and cocktails, and she realised that he must have been following her. The lie at the Tex-Mex had been automatic, she didn't like people to get too deep too fast. He'd managed to anyway, when the subject turned to her Grandmother, but the cocktail had been a brief veneer. Something to keep her from thinking what a drink could turn into. But none of that mattered because now she was suffocating in a airplane bathroom, and her dad was going to die, because if she died Jackson wouldn't be able to kill Keefe.

"I can't breathe… I can't brea…"

The edges of her vision were going black, and she thought she could feel the tips of her fingers and toes going numb, and suddenly her lungs filled with air. She fell sideways coughing. He was talking, but she couldn't hear over the vague buzzing in her ears, just registering an "..and our lives go to shit", before his fingers took her chin, pulling her to face him, and she saw a strange kind of desperation in his eyes.

"And that's not going to happen, is it?"

She said no. He made a few more casual remarks, but she just watched his eyes, seeing relief leak into them before his expression became tightly controlled again as he opened the door. Suddenly she realised Jackson Rippner might just me more that he seemed.

--

Jackson Rippner knew he was good at his job. The Keefe assassination was a high profile job, the type he was lucky to get at his age. Most of the prestigious managers were closer to forty then twenty. Until the plane ride he had been surprised about the level of difficulty. The fact that the mark regularly used the same hotel and had a close relationship with the staff, made things very easy, and the stake out of Lisa Reisert was the simplest he'd ever had to do. The girl had seemed to go through her life unaware of anyone besides herself, customers, and fellow employees. Anything outside the doors of the hotel simply wasn't real to her. Even the insomnia seemed to belong to an average workaholic loner. He'd thought she'd been pretty, but empty.

He'd hidden his surprise when she lied at the Tex-Mex. He'd filed it in 'reasons not to feel remorse about using her' and let it past. It wouldn't do for her to realise he knew she was lying. So he played her game, pushing and retreating until he saw a vague trust enter her eyes, and in that moment he knew exactly how she saw him. He wasn't a threat. It was perfect.

The slight pleasure that filled them when she realised they were sitting together was not. That was the kind of thing that did make him feel remorse, the fact that he'd soon be shattering the poor girls innocence wasn't something he enjoyed. He knew others in the company did. The lack of innocence they had made them happy to take the privilege away from others. It made him feel the opposite. But he'd just steeled his resolve, it was job and he did not want to face the consequences if it failed. He simply decided to keep the charade going for as small amount of time as he could.

The attempts to stop him had surprised him. Everything he'd seen before they stepped on the aircraft pointed towards a passive, easy to control person. The message in the book had been surprisingly resourceful, and her quick thinking when the phone cut out had been impressive. He'd meant it when he said he might have to steal her. Someone like that before training was a rare thing to find. But he'd managed to keep himself feeling anything personal towards her until now.

He'd been angry at the soap on the mirror. He didn't enjoy investigations and a message like that was certain to bring one on, but the terror and resolve in her eyes when she said he didn't have to do anything caught him off guard. The scar pushed him over the edge. Jackson knew that many people would consider him a monster. He organised peoples murders, he knew it wasn't a nice normal job. People were scared of people like him. But he couldn't stand people who caused pain for no reason. He knew she'd lied to him and he attempted to control the wild anger at whoever caused the scar by forcing it onto her. But he couldn't go through with it.

He knew when he cleaned off the mirror that she could hear the hysteria that was slowly edging into his voice. He was not at the point in the company where they couldn't afford to 'lose' him yet. Being on the run would ruin everything he'd gathered for himself. He knew when he pushed her face towards his that he'd lost. It didn't matter if she made the phone call. She knew who he was. She'd made him lose control. So she'd won. It didn't matter if the job got done, because the one person supposed to be left knowing nothing but what she'd done knew far too much about him.


	2. Agathism

**A/N:** It gets a little off track towards the end, and I didn't actually intend it to be a romance, but I enjoyed writing this one a lot.

**--**

**Agathism:**

_AG-ah-thiz-im_

The doctrine that all things tend towards ultimate good, as distinguished from optimism which holds that all things are now for the best.

--

Jackson didn't know if she'd come. He simply waited at the table, one that was sticky with the residue of coffees all the Starbucks residents before him had spilt, and sipped at his latte. He'd contacted her simply by the phone. One of the perks of his job was a cell phone that couldn't be traced. She hadn't said a word, and all he'd said is that he wanted to explain things.

It had been surprisingly easy to get out of prison, he'd simply taken advantage of the traffic, the handcuffs, the fact there was only one policeman in the car with him - apparently partially healed wounds lowered his danger value - and the flexibility he'd gained over his time working in the company. A car had been tailing them but Jackson had always been abnormally good at hide and seek. He'd stayed low for a few months. There was always an unspoken agreement in the company - if you're caught, don't try and find us, and we won't try and find you. He knew the only reason they hadn't come after them is he had never mentioned them.

Then he'd called Lisa. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about it. She'd been scarred by a monster before, and he wanted her to understand. He didn't want there to be more monsters in her life than there had to be. It wasn't that he thought she needed to know, but he needed her to know.

So he sat, sipping his latte, and watching everyone walking past the café. Then he saw her, wearing her white work dress, with a jacket over the top, looking pale and frightened. He saw her eyes land on him before she went into the shop, emerging several minutes later with a coffee. She sat down opposite him, eyes on her lap.

"I guess your going to steal me now?"

He laughed a little. "No. That was just to rub your face in your mistake, actually. If you thought that was what I was trying to do, why did you come?"

Shr glanced at him briefly, before lowering her eyes back to her skirt. "I thought I could face you. Or I wanted to see if I could."

He cocked his head. "You seem to be doing okay so far. Though you do realise if I was a threat, staring at your lap would not be the best choice."

She shook her head, as if to clear it, and managed to look him in the eyes for a few seconds, before looking out to the side, then at her coffee. "I think I should go. Will you let me?"

He let what she had sent sink in. "I'm not stopping you. Why do you feel the need to ask?"

She looked at him, jaw hanging ajar, for almost thirty seconds, before snapping back to attention, and closing her mouth, but still with her eyes locked on his. "I stabbed you in the throat with a pen, and then me and my dad both shot you with a nail gun. What are you here for if not revenge?"

His fingers flew automatically to the patch of smooth pink skin at the base of his throat. He shook his head slightly, and he could feel his eyebrows knitting together. "I wouldn't need to meet you like this if I wanted revenge. Besides, I hit your head, and slammed you into a wall. Everything in the house was spur of the moment, I was still on the job then."

She finally looked away, then caught his eye again. "So when you said you were finishing the job… That was completely true."

He smiled slightly. "I never lied to you. I told you that in the bathroom, it's still true. I invited you here to explain."

She cocked her head slightly, and he could feel a smile tugging at his lips at the gesture that had become familiar in the eight weeks preceding the red eye. "Explain."

Jackson leaned across the table, letting his intellectual side take control. "Have you ever heard of the idea of Agathism?" He barely waited for her to shake her head before continuing. "It's the idea that all things happen for the greater good."

"So, like Optimism? Why didn't you just say that."

He shook his head. "No, optimism is the belief that everything will turn out well. There's a difference. If you were an optimist you would believe that… The event in the parking lot was unfortunate, but you'd be able to get over it, because everything will turn out in the end. Agathism is the belief that it happened for the greater good, perhaps it gave you the strength to fight against me, perhaps something else. But the greater good is completely different from your own well being."

She had flinched when he mentioned the parking lot, but seemed to think about what he'd said. "So what does that have to do with us?"

"How well do you know Keefe?" He leaned further towards her, arms crossed on the table, eyes intent.

"He stays at the Lux whenever he's in Miami, which is about once every two and a half months usually. I deal with him a lot because as manager I work with his security, and help keep his rooms private. He's always been polite, and good to his family. Like I said on the plane, he's a good man."

Jackson nodded. "But then, you've only seen him like that." He didn't give her time to answer before continuing. "I know a different Keefe. I worked closely with my customer. If I had the choice I wouldn't have included the family, but it's the customer who makes the final decision. I have no qualms about killing Keefe. I happen to know it's going to happen soon anyway, the same customer hired others in my company. This time, however, he's not willing to wait until Keefe takes his family with him."

He sighed, leaning back into the chair, and taking a sip of his latte. "The Keefe I know blew up a town in southern Iraq just as a warning to anyone who could possibly be thinking of attacking us. A town that had no known connections to any terrorist organisation. It's very rare that people want other people dead without a very good reason, Leese."

Her mouth hung open. "Oh." She shook her head lightly again. "What does that have to do with Agathism?"

He took a deep breath. "The first Keefe assassination didn't work. If you subscribe to Agathism, as I do, then there still has to be a reason for what happened." Her eyebrows began to knit together as if she knew what he was about to say.

"I have to tell you that I've never invested myself in a job as much as I invested myself in that one. Tailing in a thing that usually only happens for a little over a month max. Two is a ridiculously long time, but in my periphery scopes I found myself wanting to see you. So two months it was. I.." He looked at his hands, taking another deep breath, before looking up again, and the earnestness in his eyes shocked her. It was nothing like the Jackson on the plane had been. It was nothing like the Jackson in the Tex-Mex had been. Yet somehow she knew it was honest.

"I think we were meant to meet each other, Leese. I think we were meant to keep knowing each other."

She did nothing to resist as he took her hand across the table, or as he leaned over towards her, and she realised, as his lips hit hers, the more she thought about it, the more it made sense.


	3. Ambrosial

**A/N:** Well here is the third installment, defintely the longest, with the most subtle working in of the word. There's also some subtle L/J in there for fans. Big thank you's to my two reviewers! Angrw - The title of the book if From Afterwit To Zemblanity, same as the story, but it's by a New Zealand author so I'm not sure how avaliable it is overseas. It can be found on Amazon though.

**--**

**Ambrosial: **

_am-BROH-zee-uhl_

Belonging to, or worthy of the gods.

--

The hospital was a large grey building just outside of the town centre. Lisa usually never had a reason to go there, but, after spending to last week not being able to stop thinking of the man locked deep inside it, she decided she needed to go there. So outside the main doors she stood, her heart pumping faster with every second. She gulped down a deep breath, a half hearted attempt at one of the techniques her stress management classes had taught her, and pushed through the door. She felt self conscious as she walked up to the desk, and entertained the idea of leaving briefly. But she knew she'd just end up back again.

The receptionist didn't even look at her as she reached the counter, droning a barely legible "How may I help you?"

Lisa took another deep breath. "I'd like to see Jackson Rippner, please."

The woman pressed a few buttons on the computer, stopping briefly with a confused look on her face, before giving Lisa a hard look. "That room requires an entrance code. I can tell you where it is, but if you don't have the code security outside the room won't let you in."

Lisa broke eye contact first, looking down at the tips of her shoes. She'd had to get the code from Keefe, and his reaction to her need to visit the man had certainly tainted her idea of him being a good man. "I have the code, if you could just tell me where it is that would be great." She thought the nurse would realise who she was for sure. Thoughts of people attempting to diagnose her with Stockholm Syndrome, psychiatrists, and mental hospitals ran through her head, but the woman simply wrote the number, and some directions down on a post-it note and handed it to her, then pointed her towards the elevators.

The elevator ride was the longest she had ever been on. It almost seemed longer than the flight itself had been. Each floor seemed the take an hour to go past, and she'd taken what seemed like thousands of deep, supposedly calming breaths before the doors dinged open. She didn't need to look at the room number to find the right one, no one else had heavily armed guards outside their door. She muttered the code, and one of the guards unlocked the door.

She'd known he was in a coma but the reality startled her. His wrist were handcuffed to the sides of the bed, but he himself lay limp, head lolling on the pillow. Her first though was that he was still as handsome as he'd been at the airport, and right at the start of the flight, before it had turned into a nightmare, but somehow he lost something when she couldn't see his eyes. Whatever she thought after that was blown away in a sudden rush of anger.

Suddenly words started pouring out of her, angry, hateful words, everything negative she'd ever thought about Jackson Rippner ripped itself out of her mouth, language far fouler than anything that normally came out of her mouth. After a quarter of an hour the torrent stopped. Tears were sliding steadily down her face, and she collapsed into the chair next to the bed. She started at his prone body for another forty-five minutes before wiping her face, standing up and leaving without a backwards glance.

--

She'd gone back three times. It was her forth visit to the heavily guarded hospital room when she walked in, stood at the foot of his bed, and realised she had nothing left to say. She'd poured out everything in her. Surprise rooted her to the spot for a moment before she walked again to the chair beside the bed. She stared hard at the still form. She supposed they moved him from time to time to keep him from forming bedsores, but it was strange to have spent so much time in the room, and to never have seen him move. To her surprise words rolled up to her mouth again but they weren't angry this time.

"I don't suppose anyone comes to visit you do they? I thought it was supposed to be good for coma patients if you talk to them. It's probably better for them if you never wake up. I don't know if it would be better for me though. I put you in this coma, I don't want to leave you in it…"

The words kept going. After half an hour of speech she stopped, her voice beginning to become hoarse. She stood, but hesitated before she started walking. Her hand reached out to brush some hair out of his face. She couldn't help looking back at him as she walked out.

"I'll be back."

--

One of the guards stopped her briefly after she'd given him the code. There was a new one, and it had taken Keefe a huge amount of convincing to give it to her. But then she'd managed to find out what his future strategy was regarding the 'political prisoner' - he refused to refer to Jackson by name - was, and she was quite certain she could use that information well.

"He woke up early yesterday, and so far his strategy seems to be to try and unnerve people. Just… Don't take anything he says to heart." There was concern in his eyes, and Lisa realised how strange she must look. She attempted a friendly smile, and said she still wanted to see him, and the guard unlocked the door.

Jackson Rippner was lying in the hospital bed, wrists still handcuffed to the sides, staring at the ceiling. She couldn't help but think how bored he must be. He looked up as he door swung closed, and she saw amusement light up his eyes, as his mouth stretched into a wide grin. She smiled back for a moment before realising he probably remembered nothing of her visit's the past few weeks.

"So I enquired with the guards, as well as Keefe, who's already paid me quite an eventful visit, to whether or not anyone came to see me during my unconscious hours, and imagine my surprise when they told me that in fact, I _did_ have a visitor, one Lisa Reisert, and not just once! No, four times! What ever do you want from me." She could see a mocking good humour in his eyes. She moved to the chair beside his bed, and he turned his head to follow her movements. For some reason she believed the humour was honest, and she matched it, raising her eyebrow, and letting the grin come back on her face.

"I just wanted to see you in handcuffs, Jack, it's quite a satisfying sight." His eyes sparked.

"Never realised you were a sadist. I probably should've figured that out in your house." The first sentence made her blush, but the second made her wince. He suddenly seemed to become more alert, and she knew that he knew he'd gone too far. "Leese?"

She shook her head, smiling again. "Sorry. I'm fine. But I didn't exactly mean to put you in a coma, unconscious for a couple of hours, enough time for the police to get you safely locked up would've been fine."

He smiled, not as widely as before, and attempted to spread his hands, the handcuffs scraping against the bars of the bed. "Well here you go, all locked up. But you're still here?"

At the question a wary kind of light entered his eyes. She thought about her answer for a minute. "Well the first three times I'd basically yell at you for a while, and then let myself calm down for a while. The forth I realised I'd managed to get not angry at you. So I just talked."

He seemed to let her answer sit for a while. "And now you're back again?"

She smiled. "I heard it was good for coma patients if you talk to them. I figured no one else was going to do it. Keefe probably would've been happier if you'd stayed unconscious. He's been… interesting since the flight."

He cocked his head, as best he could against the pillow. "Surely they told you I was awake before you came in here."

She let his words sink it. Anytime during the first three visits, if she had been told he was awake, or if he had woken up, she would have fled. Probably never to return, leaving to lead a life full of regret and bitter memories. Yet here she was, having a civil conversation with a man she had tried to convince herself was the devil incarnate.

"I guess… I don't know. I feel a lot better forgiving you than I did thinking you were evil."

She'd never connected forgiveness with Jackson before, but it fit surprisingly well. And she'd done it completely unintentionally.

"Forgiveness? Wow. That's impressive. You must be some kind of angel." She gave him a disbelieving look, but there was honesty in his expression along with the humour. "I mean it Leese. I certainly wouldn't have forgiven someone who did something like that to me. You're definitely gonna end up up there." He gave the ceiling a vague nod.

"You believe in heaven?" Religion of any kind, even agnosticism didn't seem to fit with her image of Jackson Rippner.

He shrugged. "Well… No. But I bet that's where you end up. You definitely belong with whatever's up there."

She smiled. "Air. Or a certain lack of it if you get up too high." Then Keefe's word from the phone call to get the code sprang into her mind, and she realised she didn't want to let that plan go into action. "They're gonna kill you."

His eyes became confused, but she could see he understood that he joking mood was gone. "Who?"

She took a deep breath. She was officially becoming a political enemy but she didn't care anymore. "Keefe. When they take you from here to prison. They're gonna stage an assassination attempt. Probably blame it on whoever you work for."

He laughed. "Don't worry about me, I should be long gone by then."

"So they'll find you and kill you then,"

He gave her a frank look. "Leese, this isn't the first time someone from my line of work has been on the run from the government. The only thing I have to worry about now is whether or not there are any bugs in this room that will tell them that I'm planning on getting out of here."

Lisa thought about it for a minute. "Do you think any have been put in since you woke up?"

He shook his head. "No. I would've noticed. Even if someone came in last night, I'm a light sleeper."

She nodded. "There's probably none then. If Keefe knew what I said last time I came he probably never would've let me know his plans, or given me the code to come in here today. So what will happen when you get out then?"

He blew hair out of his face, thinking for a minute, before his eyes focussed crossly on a chunk of hair that fell straight back in front of his eyes. Lisa rolled her eyes before leaning over and brushing it away from his face. "Ah, thank you." She could tell he hadn't been expecting her to do that, and was a little embarrassed about having to have someone do it for him. "Well. They don't think I'm continuously dangerous, so they'll probably stage a funeral for me, tell the country I was killed just like their plan. However they'll let people like you and your dad - people they think I might come after - know that I'm at large, and offer a large reward on the underground to try and get my company to turn me in. That won't work - mercenaries have a strict honour code, and I'll be staying at safe houses anyway."

She nodded thinking it over. "I should probably go. If I'm here too long they'll realise I'm not quite as upset as they think I am. Don't tell them we were civil."

He smiled widely. "Don't worry, Angel, as far as they'll know I shook you up just by lying in this bed being my incredibly charming self."

She laughed, and hesitated before saying. "Will I ever see you again? I kind of just want to get out of this mess. Leave a note for the people that matter and disappear."

He had a calculated look in his eye. "We can do that. If you're still up for it later. I'll be in tough, Angel."

She gave him one last smile, before plastering a sufficiently shaken look on her face and walking out the door. She gave the still concerned guard a shaky smile, saying "I don't think I'll be coming back again. Thank you for the warning though", before walking in tottering steps down the hall towards the elevator.

She could hear Jackson laughing right up until the thick steel doors closed.

--

Lisa stripped off her black clothes, putting on something less stiff, and less dark, before wandering back outside to her mailbox, and then collapsing onto the couch,

Her dad had wanted to go to the funeral to "see the bugger buried" as he put it. She'd wanted to go to maintain her appearance as the shaken, scared victim, attempting bravely to face up to her fears. It had been difficult to hide her satisfaction as Keefe had pulled them aside to tell them that the 'political prisoner' was not, in fact, dead, and her father had been unable to contain his anger. She'd put on a brave face, and refused Keefe's offer of protection for her house, saying that she'd rather try and face it on her own.

She sorted through the mail, all uninteresting advertisements or bills, before she came to a completely blank envelope. She looked at it confused, before opening it. It contained a small slip of paper, a brief, hand written message on it.

_This jail bird's out of town, Angel. It's been almost a year - care for a retry? Same time, different place. Maybe going the other way will help._

She grinned. He'd kept his word. She rang her father, he wasn't home, but she left a message saying that it was getting too close to a year, and she wanted to go see her mother for the anniversary, that it might help her forget.

Then she bought one ticket to Dallas, the red-eye flight, on the exact date of her last red-eye experience. She knew Jackson would find his way there.

She looked at the calendar. She had two days to make her disappearance as smooth as possible. She looked down at the note, then smiled again.

_This jail bird's out of town, Angel._


	4. Ambsace

**A/N:** So another longer one here, and I tried my best to comb out the typos this time! I've also had a quick proofread through the first couple of chapters to fix those as well. I'll also be posting the next word at the end of each chapter from now on, just to give you a hint of what's coming up! This chapter is definitely the darkest so far! It's another J/L but a little less... Mutual than my previous works. Jackson is also a little more unhinged. I had fun writing it, so I hope you guys enjoy it as well!

**--**

**Ambsace:**

_AYM-zays_

Both Aces, the lowest possible throw at dice, bad luck, misfortune, worthlessness, nought, next to nothing.

Also 'the smallest amount of distance', so synonymous with 'within a stones through' or 'within spitting distance.

--

Jackson Rippner liked chance. He had been told many times it was the only reason he hadn't advanced more in his company - he liked to leave a margin of error that most customers weren't comfortable with. As a result he was rarely given the most high profile cases. When the file for the Keefe case landed in his lap it was completely by chance. The needed someone who lived in a Miami area at that time. He did, and they'd spoken to a pleased, previous customer about him. Of course he had felt obliged to tell them about his affinity for not working every corner of his plans out, but they had just let him know that if the job failed it was on his head. That just added another layer of chance - _if_ he failed, and _if_ he managed to evade them, what would he do? Though he didn't give it too much thought - he liked to think he had things prepared for almost any possible circumstance. And he never truly entertained the idea of failing - even with the added element of chance he'd never botched a job. He was simply too good.

--

Jackson enjoyed stake outs. Especially long term stalks that jobs like this took. The chance of being noticed, and then caught, was a very real one, and the skill it took to avoid this was something he was extremely proud of. So, sitting in his car, across the road and to the right of Lisa Reisert's modest home, he was the very picture of the cat that got the cream. He was in the eighth week of the stake out. Lisa was leaving for Dallas in three hours, with a tracker he'd carefully slid into the hem of the pyjama pants, that had been hanging on the line this morning, and were currently in her bag. He would fly out just an hour after her - enough time that she'd probably be long gone, and at her mothers house, by the time he got there - but as always there was a nice margin of error that gave the simple job some danger. He sighed happily, and leaned back into the smooth leather seat as he studied the pretty brunette, who was currently loading bags into her car. She locked the boot, and went back inside, sitting down to a bowl of scrambled eggs he'd seen her making through the large kitchen window. It was her second bowl that day. He concluded it must be some sort of comfort food, then started his car and drove back to his apartment on the other side of he city, to plan how he would win the girl's trust in the airport in several days time.

--

Jackson rolled his eyes in faux resignation. He was lying on his back in Joe Reisert's front hall, with one hole in his neck, another in his thigh, and two nails embedded in his torso. His beloved margin of chance had, for the first time, somewhat overtaken him. He had to give the girl credit, he had definitely underestimated her. Even now she was looking at him, as if she could tell he wasn't completely gone yet. Not that he'd be a threat to her, especially with her father there, protectively, and stupidly, turning her away from his prone body. The nails did not feel like they'd pierced anything vital. They were painful, and they didn't help mobility impaired by the stiletto heel that had been thrust into his thigh, but he figured if he had the chance he could make it to the BMW across the road. The hole in his windpipe could make things difficult if it was left too long, but right now he still had adrenaline pumping through him. He really had to hand it to her. If he was given a pen, and stiletto, and a nail gun, the nail gun was the only thing he would've given a second glance when asked to produce a weapon. Even with that, his aim was notoriously bad.

And now the Reisert's finally made a mistake. Well meaning, protective Joe had pulled his daughter away from the scene, into the kitchen, and both were currently out of sight. As quickly, and as quietly as he could, Jackson pulled himself up and out of the house, hobbling over the road to the still unlocked Beemer. All he could hear in the street was the sirens - still far away enough that he'd be able to get away without being noticed, unless one of the Reisert's realised he'd disappeared. He was fairly sure he could count on them to believe his wounds impaired his movement too much to escape, and that the whole episode was over. He abandoned the car in an alleyway close to his apartment, and pulled himself into his apartment through a back entrance he'd made available specifically for such a time as this. A quick phone call to an associate with medical experience took place, and five hours later his wounds were bandaged, and cleaned, with the nails pulled out, and instructions to not speak until the stitches in his throat were taken out. As he left, Jackson heard the associate muttering about how there was no point anyway since the customers were going to kill him. Jackson just smiled at the array of possibilities available to him now, and proceeded to pull one of several packs arranged in a difficult to find compartment beneath his bed, that he'd prepared should he ever feel the need to go on the run, changed into clean clothes, and, as far as anyone of the several groups looking for him could tell, he disappeared.

--

Ten months later and Jackson was back in Miami. Keefe had been taken out several months beforehand, by a higher up operative. The assassination had been much simpler than the one Jackson had been asked to arrange. It was simply a very large pay off to a very green security guard, one that had been hired very soon after Jackson's attempt - Keefe had been trying to buff up his security, and it had had they opposite effect. Jackson enjoyed the irony. The customer had hired people from the company to off Jackson too, but his exploration of the endless possibilities chance could bring him had served him well. No one had found him, let alone killed him. Finally the customer had backed off, returning to wherever they had come from, and the company had ceased trying to find him.

So he was sitting in a small bar, appeasing his yearning for chance by playing dice with some of the regular patrons. The stitches in his throat were gone, leaving only a small pink scar, and the holes in his chest, stomach, and leg had all closed up. He wasn't too worried about finding work again - even the small jobs from his old company paid extremely well, and the deposit for the Keefe job had been exceedingly hefty. So he spent a lot of his time betting petty sums in his dice game, though currently he was losing terribly. He threw yet another snake eyes, and was scowling darkly at the dice he _knew_ weren't loaded, when the door opened and Lisa Reisert walked in.

Her hair was longer. They'd recognised each other at the same moment. He saw her eyes widen, and she took a step back, before setting her jaw, eyes still frightened, and walking to the bar. She ordered something. Jackson picked his dice off the table, a plan barely forming in his mind. He threw some bills on the table, to cover the money he'd lost that night, and walked over to the bar, slipping into the stool next to her.

"Are you stalking me again?" Her voice was quiet, and she didn't look at him, eyes on the hands folded demurely in her lap.

The bartender brought her drink over. Jackson pulled some more notes out of his wallet.

"I'll get that. And can I get a bay breeze, please?"

She flinched slightly at his choice. "Well are you?"

He smirked slightly, savouring the fear he could see in every line of her body. Fear made people do strange things, created endless possibilities, and she'd beaten him, yet still felt fear. "No. You actually just turned up in my spot for once."

She glanced at him quickly, a bitter expression on her face. "So are you stalking someone else now?"

"No. Being on the run kind of puts a damper on your career. If I got back in the network, certain people would be obliged to hand me over to some very unhappy customers. Not that it matters. I'll have you know that my management position payed extremely well. I'm set for the rest of my life."

She looked at him again, this time there was fire in her eyes. He savoured the life if brought to her face. "Not if I call Keefe right now. Then all you'll have is a cell for the rest of your life."

He studied her for a minute, the half congealed plan solidifying. Her hand was in her bag, obviously gripping a phone. "How about we play a game?"

"A game?" The fire in her eyes turned to incredulous disbelief.

He smirked and pulled the dice out of his pocket. "We'll throw once each. The higher roll wins. If you win, you call Keefe, I wait for him, then go quietly. If I win…" He hesitated, eyes locked on hers. "I take you out for dinner."

The bartender brought his drink over, giving the couple and odd look, before returning to the till. Jackson to a sip the cocktail, letting it rest on his tongue, and savouring the flavours, and he stared at Lisa's shocked face.

"So are you in?"

She shook her head, returning her gaze to her drink. "You're lying. There's no way you'll go quietly."

"I never lie, Leese."

"You're crazy then." She gave him a look that stung. "Why are you doing this?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I enjoy chance. And I want to take you to dinner. Obviously that's not going to be achieved just by me asking, as normal society would dictate as 'the proper way'. But then, we've never been a normal couple, have we, Leese?"

She shook her head, but he could see her unravelling. "No. You're crazy."

He laughed. "Come on, Leese, all you have to do is throw a higher number than me."

She looked up at him, desperation in her eyes. "And if I win, you promise you'll go with Keefe?"

He gave her a hard look. "I already said that." Her lips tightened, and she looked back down at her drink. "Okay fine." He rolled his eyes. "I swear on my life that if I lose our little bet, I'll go away with Keefe, quietly, and I'll never bother you again."

She took a deep breath, and nodded, seeming to steel herself. "Alright then."

Jackson shook the dice in has hand, relishing the feel of chance in the palm of his hand. The roll would either make, or ruin his life. He let go. The dice rattled along the bar, coming to a rest in front of Lisa.

Eight, a three and a five.

He looked up at her, meeting her wide-eyed, frighten gaze head on. "Your turn."

Her hands shook as she scooped up the dice. She shook them, her lips hanging open, breath coming short and sharp, before she let them fly along the surface of the bar. They landed barely a hair's-breadth from Jackson's cup. As her eyes feel on the result, her jaw clicked shut.

Two ones.

"Snake eyes, Leese. You're mine."

Her entire body shook and she stared at her lap. The loss seemed to have broken her spirit.

Her reached over, and threaded his fingers gently through her curls, the edge of his palm aligned with her jaw, and he nudged her face upwards, leaned over, and gently pressed his lips to hers. The kiss was soft, and he let it last only a second, before pulling away, his face almost touching hers, fingers tracing her cheekbone.

"I'll pick you up at seven thirty tomorrow night."

She felt him smile, rather than seeing it. Then he was gone.

--

_Next Time:_  
**Anacampserote: **_an-nuh-KAMP-suh-roht_

A herb feigned to restore departed love.'


	5. Anacampserote

**A/N:** Well I _thought_ a word like this would make something nice and romantic but instead we have Deranged!Jackson again. I had fun with the narrative, I was trying to make the madness come on subtly, so I hope it worked! The whole thing is more just food than a herb, but there is oregano! Anyway, I hope you guys all enjoy the latest addition to my compilation.

**--**

**Anacampserote:**

_an-nuh-KAMP-suh-roht_

A herb feigned to restore departed love.

--

When one is handcuffed to a hospital bed, one has a lot of time to think. The first day Jackson spent running the flight over and over in his mind, trying to find where he went wrong. He'd been too focussed on getting the call made, he supposed. He shouldn't have just written her off after she'd made it. He should have recognised the explanation of her scar as a distraction, not just written it off as the ramblings of a defeated girl. There were a million moments, ranging from the scene in the bathroom, right up to when the second nail plunged into his chest, that he could've spent differently, could've used to regain control. But somehow everything had gone wrong.

The second day, Jackson determined just how much he could move around. The handcuffs tied his wrists to the bars on either side of the bed's frame, but he could almost sit up, especially when one of the nicer nurses, whom he suspected did not know why he was currently in such an interesting position, put the remote for the bed into his hand, and he could move the bed so that it supported his back. Unfortunately he dropped the remote once he got himself upright, and the leg he managed to get off the bed - in an attempt to pick it up with his toes - just kicked it further under the bed.

He also determined, that day, that, due to the damage to his throat, he wasn't allowed to eat anything. Any nutrition was supplied through one of the many tubes attached to various parts of his body. Jackson suspected Keefe had either told them to not give him enough food, or to keep him sedated at all times, because he felt tired a lot. There was a bedpan in the appropriate area, but he could only make himself use that when it was most necessary, as twice a day a nurse would come to clean it, and, accompanied by a gun-toting guard, would take him over to the bathroom. He much preferred that.

On the third day Jackson tried to slip out of the handcuffs, which resulted in him spending half the day thinking about how much more things hurt in cold blood, and all he managed to do was slice his wrists up. The second half of the day was spent thinking about the lecture one of the day nurses had given him about attempting to commit suicide. Apparently escape hadn't crossed her mind as a possibility, and he was forced to listen to an hour of how, firstly, suicide was never an option, and how he must be mentally unstable to try it, and secondly how he simply could not die, not when she'd been doing such a good job keeping him alive so he could go spend a good long time in jail.

The fourth day was spent attempting to play music by scraping the chains of his handcuffs against the bars of the bed. He found it oddly entertaining, but he'd only done it for a couple of hours when a harried, and irritated looking nurse came into his room, and injected something in his IV that made him fall asleep, and stay like that for the rest of the day.

The fifth day was spent remembering Lisa Reisert. Jackson realised that, if he tried, he could remember that her hair smelt like hazelnut and vanilla, and though part of him knew that was her shampoo, he liked to entertain the thought that it was her natural scent. He could still feel her skin beneath his fingers, if her tried hard enough. He liked remembering what she looked like in the Tex-Mex, before he'd revealed why he was really there. He liked to imagine what could have happened if he hadn't been on the job, and if they'd just met there normally. He thought they would have worked well together.

The sixth day Jackson spent trying to pick out which ceiling tiles were loose, and could be pushed up to get into the roof and walls. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the realisation that he'd never really be sure until he could test them, but he liked trying all the same. He also knew that he probably had the knowledge to pick out which ones were the most likely, and it was probably a logical thing, but he preferred trying to see things like unusual shapes made out of fly spots, or cracks in the plaster. He was sure that the nurse thought he was quite insane, as he'd been glaring at the ceiling every time she walked in that day, but he couldn't really bring himself to care what she thought. Her opinions didn't seem to make anything change.

On the sixth day Jackson decided he was in love with Lisa Reisert. He thought they were well matched, he thought she was beautiful, and he was almost certain she'd been attracted to him before he'd brought her father, and Keefe into the mix. All he had to do, he decided, was get out of the hospital, and win her back. He spent the rest of the day running the red-eye flight through his mind again, but this time trying to think of things he could've done to finish the job, while retaining Lisa's affections.

After that day Jackson had been sedated for quite some time, so he didn't know what day it was, but he spent in delving into his past. He knew he had some memories of his parents fighting, and making up, and he planned on using the ideas in them to get Lisa back. Unfortunately the memories seemed to be buried extremely deep. Eventually he was able to recall one, when his father had upset his mother, and then made the whole family dinner to make it up to her. He couldn't remember what his father had made, but he was sure that he could adapt it to fit Lisa and himself. He could make scrambled eggs, he knew she liked them, and he could do it so that it would be ready just as she got home. He knew her shifts at the hotel, he knew just what time she'd be home, and best of all he knew exactly how to break into her house. He could see the outcome perfectly in his mind. She'd forgive him, surely she would, and they'd be able to live happily ever after, without Joe, or Keefe, or anyone else. The idea made him grin, and he kept grinning, and thinking about it, until he fell asleep that night.

--

Jackson wasn't quite sure when he'd suddenly seemed to become healed, or who had gotten him out of the hospital. He presumed he might've been unconscious, but he didn't really care enough to try and figure it out. Someone vaguely familiar had taken him to a house, one that he somewhat recognised (the word safe-house came to mind, but he wasn't sure he remembered what that meant). He'd been told by the vaguely familiar person to stay there. Then the man had given him a long stare, ran his hand through his hair, and said "Jesus". Jackson didn't know what he meant by that, but he didn't mind. He knew he'd been told to stay in the house, but all he could think about was Lisa, and there were no handcuffs keeping him in place, so it was easy just to open the door and walk out.

It had been harder than he expected to find Lisa's house. He supposed he wasn't used to walking. By the time he got there he figured he'd have just under the amount of time he needed to make the eggs before she got home from work, but he thought about it, and decided that her finding him in the kitchen would be just as nice. So he beat the eggs, and started to cook them. He knew you could add things after you took the eggs off the heat, so he searched the kitchen for things he could add. He knew it seemed more personal if it had an extra touch. He found some jars of herbs, mostly full, and, after searching though, found that the one labelled 'oregano' had been used the most, so he figured that Lisa must like it, and put some in the eggs. He was just giving the pot a final few stirs, about to pour the eggs into two bowls, when Lisa walked in the front door.

He looked up eagerly. The eggs hadn't taken long to make, he knew, but it had felt like years, just because he'd been waiting for her to come home. She came into the kitchen, searching in her bag, but became instantly aware that there was someone else in the room. Her whole body tensed, and she looked up.

"Jackson?" She took a step backwards, her eyes wide, and her face pale. Jackson thought she looked far prettier when she was smiling. He thought maybe if he smiled she'd smile back, so he did. Then he started trying to explain about the eggs. She had to understand that he'd made them for her. She just stared at him, big eyes that had something strange inside them. He trailed off, feeling hurt. She gulped and seemed to plaster a smile on her face, but her eyes still looked strange.

"That's really sweet of you, Jackson. I just have to… Go to my room and get changed, okay?"

He didn't want to refuse her anything. He couldn't. He wanted to win her. So he smiled and nodded, and finished setting the table. She took a little longer than he expected, but Jackson figured that girls were supposed to take longer. He was sure that was normal. And he wanted them to be a normal couple. She came back out, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and sat down across the table from him, still giving him the same, strange smiles, and they ate their eggs. Jackson thought she was beautiful. He was so focussed on her that he didn't notice the front door open again. He didn't realise other people were in the house until the handcuffs closed on his wrists and they pulled him out of the chair. He didn't fight. He couldn't understand what was happening. How did they find him? Lisa couldn't have done it. Lisa… He couldn't look away from her eyes, wide, tearful, and scared as they dragged him away.

--

_Next Time:  
_**Antepenultimate: **_an-tee-peh-NUL-tuh-mut_

The last but two.


	6. Antepenultimate

**A/N:** So the sixth story is here. Yes, the ending is deliberately ambigious. I also have a question to ask everyone: I am considering rewriting the story for Afterwit. I'm not happy with how in compares to the rest of the stories I have in this compilation - it's closer to a drabble than a full story. So what do you guys think? If I do rewrite it, there won't be any fresh updates, but the new story might be something completely fresh, and not connected with the previous chapter. So I'm going to let you guys decide. I want to rewrite it anyway, eventually, but possibly not until after I've done a few more.

--

**Antepenultimate: **

_an-tee-peh-NUL-tuh-mut_

The last but two.

--

Jackson Rippner ran a hand through his hair, straightened his suit jacket, and spent a moment convincing himself that this would be his last job, before walking out the door. As always, the thought of his last job reminded him of his first. His induction to the company had been surprisingly simple. He was seventeen, he'd just run away for his foster home, and he'd seen a man behaving oddly in the mall he was eating in. He'd pinched a folder from the mans bag, found out about the job the man had been on, and then, in need of money, threatened to ruin it, unless the man gave him some cash. The company had been impressed, he knew now that if they hadn't he wouldn't be alive. He'd very nearly refused the "one job" that they'd offered him, but it seemed simple enough, and he'd been tempted by what seemed like a very large amount, of very easy money. He'd told himself that he'd just do the one job, but here he was, ten years later, and still doing the same thing. He shook the memories out of his head - this one _would_ be his last - and picked up the case carrying the file on the girl he was supposed to be tailing. He'd read over it so many times that he'd memorised the address, but he checked one more time. He parked outside the small house, and pulled the file out again.

The target hadn't left the house yet. He could see her moving in the kitchen. He'd start taking closer looks at her habits in the next couple of weeks, but first he needed to establish a basic schedule. He braced himself for the many sleepless nights that he knew were coming. He skim read over the file again, before looking closely at the photo stapled to the top. It must have been stolen from somewhere. The company had said they didn't have anyone close enough - that was why he'd been instructed to do such a close tail. In the photo she was smiling at the camera, hazel eyes sparkling, her hair hanging around her face in thick brown curls.

"Lisa Reisert…" he murmured. The front door opening made him look up, and he watched her climb into her car, before beginning to drive down the road. He started his own car, and drove after her. He didn't need to follow her too close - he knew where she worked - so he made sure he was careful about letting himself be seen. He'd have to swap cars a few times in the weeks following. He began to feel bad for the girl, knowing that in a few weeks this girls life would be changed forever. But he could steel himself. He'd get the job over with, it'd be the last one.

--

Jackson was now certain that this was going to be his last job. Unfortunately, it was not because he would be able to retire. He wasn't sure if being shot twice was going to kill him, but if it didn't an irate customer probably would. He knew his line of work was vicious. He'd made a point of avoiding it landing on him until now. The girl was still watching him. He could see a vague sort of pity in her face. He let his head drop to the ground, resigning himself to his fate. He'd had to infiltrate hospitals before. If he was taken there he knew it wouldn't be long until his customers got back to him. Finally the stress of the night, and the wounds started to catch up with him, and his vision started to go dark at the edges. His last sight was the pity in Lisa Reisert's eyes.

--

"We _were _going to kill you, Rippner."

There was a dark figure beside his bed. He tried to shift to get away from it, but the handcuffs didn't allow much movement. He was sure this was going to be his end. It took a moment for the word 'were' to reach his mind.

"Your company is quite attached to you. I'm sure you know that. They convinced us to simply offer an ultimatum: you kill Keefe, or we kill you. The company says to inform you that as soon as you're well enough you'll be shifted to somewhere more… hospitable, to your occupation. You probably won't need the handcuffs there."

The figure disappeared. Jackson lay in the room, staring at the ceiling. His hands clenched into fists, then relaxed, over and over again. He didn't want to keep doing jobs. But he didn't want to die either. He sighed, and let himself relax back into the mattress. He didn't really have much of a choice. He closed his eyes, and began running events through his mind. He had an assassination the plan. And this time there were no guidelines, no hotel managers to get in the way. It was his job. And as he lay there, running theories through his mind, he convinced himself that it was going to be his last.

--

Jackson slipped back out the window, resting balanced on the edge of a fire escape for a moment, letting himself catch his breath. If everything went as planned, the timer left in the alcohol soaked carpet would release a spark in one minute. No one was due to check in on the politicians room for several hours - surprisingly accommodating, Keefe had told his security that his family would be fine, and to take a night off. Not to say he wasn't guarded - as far as his security knew the window was very hard to break, and impossible to get into from the outside. The wall was certainly thick enough to stop the sounds of fire getting through until at least after the body had been badly burnt - any evidence pointing to him would be completely gone. He wasn't leaving Keefe to be burnt alive of course - that would be inhumane - he'd been taken out by a quick, fatal injection to the back of his neck. The job was done. He could get out.

--

The call came as a surprise. The phone was on only as a formality - he'd told the company he wouldn't be accepting any more jobs - and he no longer kept it on his person. The name on the screen made him frown. Keefe was dead, he didn't understand what they could want with him. He answered it, trying to hide his confusion.

"We have another job for you. We know you're technically retired, but you're the only person that we can trust to do this. In fact, we think you probably want to do it, as much as we want to get it done."

He stayed silent. He couldn't think of anything that he and the people on the other end of the phone could possibly have coinciding ideas about. He knew he'd get his answer if we waited though.

The voice on the other end of the phone let out a small laugh, before saying in an amused voice, "We want you to kill Lisa Reisert."

Jackson felt shock course through him. "What? She's a civilian."

The voice chuckled again. "She knows too much. Surely you're too fond of your freedom to let her live? She'll turn you in. We will pay you extra of course, given that they'll probably suspect you instantly. Your motive is rather obvious. Just remember the consequences from the Keefe job - they'll extend to Reisert. You have a month - if she's not dead then you are."

The line clicked off. Jackson started at his phone for almost a full minute. Lisa was innocent. She shouldn't have to die. But if he did this, then he'd finally be able to stop.

He sat down on his bed, put his head in his hands, and started to plan.

--

The cold steel of the gun felt strange against his palm. He didn't like guns, never had. He didn't want to be using one now, and it was the best he could get on such short notice. He knew he had to do this now, otherwise he never would. Getting into Lisa Reisert's house had been easier than he'd expected, after the flight, and his escape. He'd made his way silently through the house, until he found her asleep, in her bedroom. He took a deep breath, trying to convince himself that it was necessary. Somehow he ended up pointing the gun at her, breathing heavily, feeling his hands begin to shake. Then she woke up.

"Jackson?" The fear in the room was palpable. Jackson could feel his heart start to beat faster. He stared down the sight of the gun. His finger twitched on the trigger. He couldn't look away from her eyes, and he didn't think she could look away from his.

He broke away, turning around, facing the wall and leaning against it. His breath was coming in great heaves, he was sure she could hear his heart beat. Tears began to squeeze out of his eyes, and he trying in vain to control the sobs that wracked his frame.

"Jackson?" She'd stood up.

He turned around again, pressing himself against the wall.

"I'm sorry. I'm… They're gonna kill me…" He couldn't control his tongue, the words kept spilling out. She came closer, eyes wide and confused. He looked down at the gun in his hand, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and raised the gun. The realisation flooded him that this was really going to be his last job. He pulled the trigger.

One body fell to the ground.

--

_Next Time: _**Antinomy:**_ an-TIN-uh-mee_

A contradiction within a law, or between two laws.


	7. Antinomy

**A/N:** Well I wrote a massive Author's Note about exactly what I've been doing since my last update (the main point was graduating High School) but my internet is unreliable lately, and I lost the whole thing. So the basis was: I'm sorry I haven't updated in so long (I honestly didn't realise that was August! I've had two sets of exams since then!), and hopefully updates should be coming fairly regularly again, at least until Uni start in late Febuary. I hope you enjoy this, I'm not sure I do, as Jackson really is an asshole. He's probably the most Canon!Jackson I've ever written, which is weird.

**--**

**Antinomy:**

_an-TIN-uh-mee_

A contradiction within a law, or between two laws.

--

Jackson Rippner had no idea how his employer had managed to compile a list of every safe house he owned, or had rooms in, or how they managed to get the details on every passport that had his picture in it, but that hardly mattered anymore. No, the employer having all his potential hiding places was nothing to the police and FBI having them. Which they now did. It'd taken him the better part of the month to recover enough to escape from the prison hospital he'd been held in, only to find he had no where to go. He'd made it to the closest safe house only minutes before the police, and for once he was extremely glad he knew the nearby park so well. If there was one thing he really, really didn't want to do, it was end up in jail.

He'd never respected common criminals more. He supposed he'd never actually realised how hard it was to hide from anyone without enough money to buy peoples silence, or houses under other peoples names, that seemed empty most of the time, so _must_ be holiday homes. He suspected that the employer knew that his mobile phone, which had been plugged in inside the house, was running out of battery, which is probably why he'd asked for a physical meeting.

Jackson ran a hand through his hair and grimaced. He felt disgusting. Apart from the phone, he'd only had time to grab a fresh suit and a gun from the house. The gun depressed him as well. He never had to resort to such crude methods of self protection. He didn't even want to think of where he'd been sleeping the past two days, or that he'd probably still be sleeping there for quite a while. Until he got caught. You didn't have friends in the Company. You simply worked until you screwed up. And he'd screwed up. Badly.

He didn't even know why they wanted to meet with him. If they wanted him caught all they had to do was leave him alone until the police found him. He tried to think of something they'd want from him, but he couldn't imagine anything. He'd failed the job, he'd been caught. But they obviously wanted something, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered with finding his way out. They were going to offer him safety, in exchange for something. If only he could think what. Someone sat down in the chair opposite to him. They'd chosen the café as the meeting place. He could see several places they could have someone else watching him. The man opposite him was nondescript. Black hair, blue eyes, and a face that could easily be lost in a crowd. Jackson attempted to fix it in his mind, mentally grabbing at the features that would just slightly set him apart from anyone else, the lower lip just slightly to thin for the rest of his face, the pale freckle on the bridge of his nose. He settles back, and continues to study the mans face as he listens to the deal Mr. Nondescript was setting out before him.

--

They didn't give him a file. He had no where to keep one, and it would be obvious, if he was caught, that the same people who gave the police the 'anonymous' tip off as to where he would probably be found after his escape were hiring him to kill Lisa Reisert. In exchange for possible safety. _Possible._

He sighed and lay back (squashing the disgust that came with the fact that Jackson Rippner, one of the fastest rising stars in management, was sleeping in a park), and ran the information over again. His record before the Keefe disaster had been spotless. They were considering hiding him. They would continue to consider it, if he got rid of the girl who now knew too much. It seemed they'd hired a lower down member of the company to go after her first, and his attempt to get her softened up and alone with him was to get her drunk (Jackson would've been able to tell him that wouldn't work) which had only resulted in getting himself drunk, and caught by the police after he'd first let a few things slip that he really shouldn't have. So Lisa Reisert was not officially In Too Deep.

Jackson really didn't have options. If he didn't kill Reisert, he had no chance of staying out of prison. If he killed her he had a chance. He thought it was probably an imagined one, they wouldn't help him, when they could get his skills for free on the pretence of helping him. He sighed. Reisert was staying at the Lux with her father, the police wanted her to stay out of her own flat until they caught him, and her fathers house was still a crime scene. Besides, he probably didn't want to go back until they got the blood out of the carpet. Security was increased tenfold since the attack, though luckily there were no Personalities staying there currently. He had her room number - amusingly close to suite 4080. He had the hotel blueprints memorised from the Keefe job. They told him the basic security shifts. Even with that, it shouldn't be too hard to break into the hotel. In all honesty, he knew it was his only chance. So he shifted to get comfortable, and started to plan.

--

It was easier than he'd realised to get into the hotel. He'd planned break ins before, of course, but he generally didn't have to do them. He didn't realise how true it was the security didn't look at balconies much, and when you were desperate, and knew the hotel as well as he did, it was actually fairly easy to climb up them. He reached Reisert's room without much trouble, but the sliding door posed a problem. However, he was just pulling himself over the edge of the balcony, onto solid ground, when it slid open. Jackson couldn't help raising his eyebrows. Perfect timing.

Reisert was staring at him, disbelief and fear clear on her face. "What are you doing here? I thought they caught you."

The fact that she was still scared of him went a little way towards healing the injustice of having worn the same suit for a week. "No. The same people that have me sleeping in a park right now want me to kill you."

Apparently pleasant wasn't the way to go with this conversation, as Reisert was obviously not processing much. "A park. Why do they want me dead?"

He rolled his eyes, "Yes, a park. Because idiot who tried to kill you before I escaped let a few things he shouldn't have slip. So you need to die before you realise what they are."

She wasn't even trying to get away. "Why are you doing this, Jackson? You already ruined my like once, you don't need to do it again."

He walked a little closer, pulled the gun out of his belt, and levelled it at her head, before clicking the safety off. "I already told you; I'm living in a park. Eventually I'm going to get caught, If I kill you, I might be safe, they'll consider putting me in a safe house until the fervour dies down. And I'm not ruining your life this time, Leese, I'm ending it"

A small gasp escaped her lips. "Who is asking you to do this?"

He rolled his eyes. "Mr. Nondescript. Mr. I Want The Job Done. Mr. Can Keep Me Out Of Prison. Anything else you want to know?"

The sardonic tone to his last words made fire flash in her eyes. "Yes. What would it take for you not to kill me."

He snorted. "Somewhere to hide from the police, and the people who will make it not a place to hide from the police dead. But that's not gonna happen."

He cocked the gun, but was froze when the sound echoed right beside his head. He cursed his peripheral vision as he realised Mr. Nondescript himself was standing right beside him, probably was the whole time.

"You know, you're easy to recognise, Rippner. We took the customer out when he was on the way to his meeting with you. Figured this would be an easy way to catch you. No public disturbance. No fuss. Just the story of you trying to finish the job, but getting caught. You're gonna be locked away for a long time. Drop the gun."

Jackson swallowed. There was no way he could get out of this without dying or getting caught. He could see shape moving inside the room now, menacing shapes holding menacing looking guns. He felt himself scowl as he tried to figure out a way he could die on his terms. He was not going to prison. He was not getting caught.

"Drop the gun, Rippner."

He was still close to the balcony. There was no way he could survive the whole fall. He could try to twist into someone else's balcony, but there were probably security guards all through the hotel that had been instructed to let him pass. No one needed him to kill Reisert - they were already dead. Mr. Nondescript had tricked him, and that rubbed him up the wrong way.

"Rippner…"

He made the decision. He couldn't miss at this range anyway. He pushed himself backwards, twisting around towards Mr. Nondescript, and let of one shot. He saw red blossom into life on the guys shirt before he fell, and he closed his eyes to the frightened scream of Reisert. He fell smiling.

--

_Next Time:********_

Antiscian:

Those who live on the meridian, but on the opposite side of the equator, so that their shadows at noon fall in opposite directions.


	8. Antiscian

**A/N: **I am _so sorry_ it took me this long to update - I've been writing a lot of essays, and reading a lot of books, and Jackson and Lisa haven't given me any plot in a long time. I also found Wreck!Lisa very difficult to write, and I was very slow to write this. I'm still not happy with the ending, but I thought it would be better to wrap this up, and move to the next word, than stay stuck part of the way into this story for much longer.

--

**Antiscian:**

_an-TEE-shun_

Those who live on the meridian, but on the opposite side of the equator, so that their shadows at noon fall in opposite directions.

--

Lisa Reisert was a nervous wreck. Ten months after the red-eye her psychologist had told her she didn't know how Lisa was so mentally sound. Somehow standing up to someone, actually doing something, instead of just being a victim, had brought the old Lisa back. The one who'd walked into that car park, but had never walked out. Now, eight months after that, everything had changed, again. She'd quit her job - she'd been on the verge of losing it even before that. She'd had too many sick days, been too distracted when she was there. She jumped at every sound, she hardly ate, she could barely answer the phone. She knew people were worried, but she couldn't bring herself to contact anyone. She wasn't paying the rent, she wasn't paying the bills, and she wasn't talking to anybody.

Which was why she was so surprised when a disgruntled Cynthia walked into her flat without knocking.

"_Christ,_" was all Lisa managed to get out, though she had leapt to her feet - hands twitching for something - anything - that could be used as against whoever was on the other side of the door, as soon as she heard the key scraping on the was into the lock. The 'emergency' spare key she'd given to Cynthia when she'd first moved into the flat - two months after the red-eye - seemed years ago.

"Don't bother, Lisa," Cynthia snapped, holding up one finger, as if Lisa was going to start on a tirade, or run. "I was _going_ to let you deal with whatever it is that's going on with you, god knows it's surprising nothing happened earlier, but your dad, _and_ your landlord rang me, and apparently you haven't paid the rent for two months, and you haven't answered the door, phone, or even left the house in one, and seriously, Leese, that's not okay. What are you even eating."

Lisa flinched at the nickname, but opened her mouth to reply. Before she could coax her voice into working Cynthia had breezed into the kitchen, opening the cupboards, revealing countless cans of food that Lisa had stockpiled when she was still able to leave the house. She had the wince as the expression on Cynthia's face tightened and became harder. She couldn't help making a sound of protest when the small, white hand reached for the last cupboard, but that only served to harden the expression, and make the door open more forcefully.

Lisa knew exactly what was in that cupboard. Forty-eight letters. Six of the small cards that came with bunches of flowers. One pair of earrings. One choker. Two pairs of heels - perfectly sized. One dress, also perfectly sized. One tacky model of a plane - the kind you buy as last minute souvenir, when you've forgotten to buy someone something while you were on holiday - with Fresh Air emblazoned on the side. It looked innocent enough. If it was anyone else, it would be innocent enough. Neatly written notes, referencing anniversaries, inside jokes, normal relationship history. From a relationship that was far from normal.

Cynthia was fingering the earrings, and one of the cards.

"I remember these. They arrived while we were working. Six months ago, right?", she was confused, Lisa could tell, probing. Lisa nodded once, quickly, willing her to close the cupboard, walk out the door, leave Lisa to her hiding. Well, cowering. She held no illusions. She would be found. She probably already was, she knew the sadistic pleasure that… he… would take from watching her caught in his trap. Spasms of terror wracked Lisa's frame. She didn't realise that Cynthia was talking again until she calmed down enough that the rushing in her ears had faded.

"-happen? I remember you started getting distracted after these arrived. I just though you'd met someone - Leese what's going on?"

Lisa opened her mouth to answer, something breezy, something to dismiss the concerned look on Cynthia's face, but the nickname sent her into a flurry of dry swallows, desperately unable to get a word out. She could see Cynthia's focus sharpening - she wouldn't let this go now, she's push and pull, and all number of things that made Lisa's breath shorten and her face pale. But then she saw the expression soften.

"You don't need to tell me now. But I _will_ find out what happened!" Lisa could hear the resolution is Cynthia's voice, and winced. "We'll have time. This is what I came about, actually. I've talked to your dad and we've agreed that drastic measures need to be taken, you need to get away and relax, _so_, we're going on holiday!"

Lisa felt as if the bottom had dropped from her stomach. She felt dizzy, the area behind her forehead felt like is was filled with cotton wool, and she had to sit down. She remained there, head spinning to much to pay attention, as Cynthia continued her exposition. Bits and pieces made their way through to Lisa's mind - tickets already booked, leaving the next day, somewhere that sounded like Coolangatta? But that wasn't a word was it…

Lisa's head was beginning to still when she realised that Cynthia has stopped talking, and was staring at her with a painfully sympathetic look on her face. It was all Lisa could do not to flinch when a hand was laid lightly on her arm.

"Don't worry, Leese, everything is going to be fine."

From that everything seemed to be a blur. In what seemed like an hour Cynthia had deemed everything from the cupboard, the cards, the jewellery, unhelpful, and the letters and cards had been thrown out almost instantly, while the valuables had been taken to a second hand shop without, it seemed, Cynthia ever leaving. Lisa's bags had been packed, and she was at the airport with Cynthia, it seemed before she blinked. She could feel her breath coming quick, and light, she was hyperaware of everyone around her, and she felt almost off balance without that cupboard of reminders to orientate herself around. Everywhere she turned people were in perfectly tailored suits, or had pin straight brown hair flopping into their face, and sharp, angry blue eyes stared back from each face.

She had calmed herself by the time they got on the plane. No one had spoken to her except for Cynthia, and the airport employees, and she had recognised no one. The fact that they hadn't been able to get seats together - some glitch in the computer system that had baffled the women who had checked them in - had sent a warning bell up in Lisa's mind, but when the boarding lounge had been entirely absent of familiar faces she had relaxed. As she settled into her seat, she finally allowed herself to hope. She was away. Soon she'd be far away from… him… Almost the other side of the world. She started to believe that she would be able to heal there, that when she came back she would be able to face up to letter after letter, get back to the person she'd been six short months ago.

She smiled for what seemed like the first time in weeks, turning to look out the window as the last few passengers entered the plane. Weight settling into the seat next to her caused her to stiffen. She tried to make herself relax - it couldn't be - but ice was crystallising in the bottom of her stomach. Her throat dried as she forced herself to turn back slowly, the glance out of the corner of her eyes to the figure who was staring straight ahead, a superior smile on their lips. She forgot how to breath as she took him in, exactly as she remembered him, as his face had looked in the mugshot displayed on the news when he had disappeared from his prison hospital room. The blue in his eyes was frozen, and it froze her in place. His smile widened.

"Come on, Leese, you didn't think you could get away from me that easily."

--

_Next Time:_

**Apophenia**

The experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.


	9. Apophenia

**A/N: **So it's been a... Slightly shorter time since my last update than that one and the one before... I really am sorry guys, university and university theatre are EATING MY SOUL (which is funny because the last university show I was in was _Macbeth Re-Arisen_ which is like Shakespeare with Zombies and Zombies eat brains which is kind of like eating souls as... Ha... Ha...). Yeah it's midnight on a Sunday, and I've just transferred all my writing onto my sisters old laptop, only to find it doesn't have Office, only wordpad so I can't _open _90% of it... I also had alot of trouble with this, which is why it's a little drabbly and less of the story than other chapters. It was particulay strange because Jackson in this is very intelligent in a very specific way, that I am not intelligent in at _all_. So that's why all the connection are that obvious. Because it's hard to write characters that are more intelligent than you. And with that fun note, on with the show.

**Apophenia:**

_uh-poh-FEE-nee-uh_

The experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.

--

Jackson had to force himself to keep breathing as he watched Lisa disappear into the tiny airplane bathroom. Everything was going according to plan. Everything would continue to go according to plan. Because it had too. Because he'd planned it, he'd done the calculations, and he'd analysed the possible results, and he'd thought about how to stop all the possible digressions. And that would be all they would be. Digressions. They would reach the final goal, him and Lisa, whether she was willing or not. By six am Keefe would be dead, and Lisa would be dealing with the consequences, and he'd be on his way to somewhere else where he could breathe easily for a while.

But that didn't help now. His mind was rushing a mile a minute. He shouldn't have let Lisa leave her seat, he'd realised almost instantly. He'd been keeping careful tabs on whoever she had contact with. The angry man in the line - a Dr. Herbert Press if his passport was to be believed - was closer to the front, in First Class. Jackson wished he was able to see what happened in the other parts of the plane, but if Lisa had known what was coming than he believed Dr. Press would be one of the least likely. Top of the list was, of course, the woman who she'd given the Dr. Phil book too. Though he'd managed to, by quick thinking, get it away from her after the pitifully obvious message scrawled with the highlighter, he hadn't been able to stop thinking of possible messages that might have been in it when she'd first given it the old lady.

The air hostesses he couldn't worry about too much - they had the same contact with Lisa that everyone else had, apart from her ill advised call for help. Even then, the women's response had been an ill-constructed mask of sympathy. Anyway, he had detailed files on everyone working on this airplane, and some information on all the passangers, even if he couldn't match faces to most of the files, which had for the most part been pitifuly without photos, and neither of the attendents had so much as a hair out of place as far as their files went. He was almost more worried about Blonde Women. Debbie-Rae Calvin - as she had introduced herself as he was helping with her bags - was far too eager to distract him from his purpose.

He exhaled slowly, and shifted in his seat. Though the confined nature of a plane, with no where to run to, was almost perfect for this job, he didn't like working in it. He couldn't help noticing where the exits were, even if they were exits he wouldn't be able to use. Because now Lisa had talked to the Child. Rebbecca Fitzwilliam, the only unaccompanied minor on the flight. Of course, if the child was involved than she wouldn't know all the details, that would be a scarring experiance for a little girl, but children were perfect for delivering messages because they tended to go unnoticed. Which was exactly why Jackson had to notice her. But she wasn't talking to anyone. She was just throwing confused little glances from the toilet where Lisa was, to the row where he was sitting.

And Jackson had to sit still, and breathe slowly, because he could see the good doctor standing up from his row, and Rebecca's seat was placed exactly halfway between him and the old lady with the Dr. Phil book, and Debbie-Rae's last name was Calvin, and Dr. Phil Calvin McGraw was emblazoned on the back of the book in his seat pocket, and Debbie-Rae herself was still glancing at him every three-point-five minutes, and the child was staring at him now, and the old women was still wondering loudly where her book had disappeared too, as if it was really, really important, and McGraw was the last name of a county singer and Lisa had spent _far to long in that bathroom_. So Jackson pulled in a deep breath, closed his eyes, pushed everything out of his mind, and went to find her.

--

**Aporia:**

_uh-POHR-ee-uh_

1. _Rhetoric._ The expression of a simulated or real doubt, as about where to begin or what to do or say.  
2. _Logic, philosophy._ A difficulty encountered in establishing the theoretical truth of a proposition, created by the presence of evidence both for and against it._  
_


	10. Aporia

**A/N:** So it's been a while again... I apologise, I started a story for Aporia when I finished the last, didn't get a chance to write for a while, and came back to what I'd written, with absolutely no idea where I'd been going to go with it. My bad for not writing a plan, huh? So I decided to acquiesce to the request of NicolinaN anf go back to the dinner referred to in 'Ambsace'. It's a pretty lazy way of working in the words, and I'm not entirely proud, but it's an update, and now I can move on to better things. But, in more exciting news, we are now 10% of the way through this little adventure! However I'm going to have to significantly speed up my updates if I want to finish it by my goal date of the end of next year (I'm thinking of going to drama school after I finish my BA, so I'll be lucky if I have time to breathe, let alone write). Anyway, quick warning **this chapter contains one example of strong language**. No worse than whats in the movie, but if you're sensitive to that sore of thing, there it is.

**Aporia:**

_uh-POHR-ee-uh_

1. _Rhetoric._ The expression of a simulated or real doubt, as about where to begin or what to do or say.

2. _Logic, philosophy. _A difficulty encountered in establishing the theoretical truth of a proposition, created by the presence of evidence both for and against it.

Lisa had to admit she was terrified. She had been for ten months. As much as she, intellectually, know that Jackson Rippner was a threat, when he'd been lying, bleeding, in her dad's hallway, looking so defeated, she couldn't see that in the apparently broken figure. So she'd let her well meaning father pull her into the kitchen, so she wouldn't have to look at the man who had been trying to kill her. However, all the well her father could wish her didn't help when the police arrived, and there was no one lying above the fresh blood staining the carpet, and no silver Beemer parked across the street. And since then she'd been living terrified. Terrified that he would be coming for her. His single minded focus on 'finishing the job' had made a very strong impression on her. She still wasn't sure how he'd managed to get to her dad's house so soon, but she was almost glad she didn't know.

However time had passed and logic had slowly wormed its way into the forefront of her mind. Jackson had certainly been worried enough about completing the job that there had to be consequences if it wasn't completed – that had shown in the conversation in the airplane bathroom. So surely he'd be focusing more on avoiding those, rather than punishing her. Surely it was vanity that made her think she was so significant in his life. Ten months had passed, at first incredibly slowly and then suddenly with blinding speed. It wasn't that she had stopped being scared, but she had started easing herself back into a semblance of a normal life. So when one of the girls who worked front desk at the hotel had asked her if she wanted to go out for a drink after their shifts ended, it only took a few moments for her to convince herself to go.

The bar was one she had driven past often, but had not visited. She had always thought that it looked like a dive, but the younger girl had sworn up and down that it sold the best margaritas within ten blocks, so Lisa had felt obliged to go. Usually they'd be leaving the hotel at the same time, but when Lisa walked into the lobby, she saw the girl talking to an obviously irate couple. After being assured that the situation was sorted, and that her help wasn't needed for it to be resolved, Lisa, feeling good about breaking out of her shell, offered to go order the first round of drinks, so that they'd be ready when the girl arrived. It was a simple offer; she'd be alone in the bar for all of five minutes before her company arrived. There was no reason to be scared, and for the first time in months, she wasn't

Of course that all went straight out of the window when she walked into the bar, which, admittedly, looked nicer on the inside than it did on the outside, and locked eyes with Jackson Rippner. He was sitting at the back of the bar, and he looked as if he'd stepped straight out of her memory, so much so that she though she was hallucinating for a moment. He'd been angry when she walked in, but the moment he saw her it was like his expression flipped off. She couldn't move for a moment, and when she could her first instinct was to run out of the bar. But then she remembered the terrifying moments where she was wondering if the old lady on the plane was dead, or unconscious, and the worry for her father lodged in her throat like a pill she couldn't swallow, and she realized that if he wanted to see her, she would have to see him, or risk people getting hurt, again.

However, there was no way she was going over to him. She'd forced her feet to carry her to the bar, and though part of her mind tried to remind her that she was supposed to be buying a round of cocktails, her mouth ordered a single beer. And then she heard a voice beside her that made her flinch. And the rest of the conversation had passed like wind. She barely remembered anything that had happened it was like her brain skipped straight to the sight of those dice, one black spot each, beside the pink liquid in his glass, and the pressure of his kiss on her numb lips. She could see no way out. He'd claimed he wasn't stalking her again, but she hardly believed anything that came out of his mouth.

That was how she ended up in one of Miami's upper crust restaurants, wearing the nicest dress in her closet, opposite the one person in her life she had never wanted to see again. The reservation had been under the name Mr. Morris, and she had to wonder how quickly he could disappear, or even make her disappear, if he needed too. The thought didn't help her pounding heart. They sat opposite each other at the table for two, and he smiled at her over the breadsticks. She had to tentatively smile back. She was well aware of the fact that they looked like a completely normal couple to everyone else in the vicinity. She had to act normal. There was no other choice. The exchanged pleasantries, though she barely comprehended the words, and struggled to remember that the proper response to being told that she looked nice was "thank you".

They'd ordered both drinks and entrées – he'd recommended something as she hadn't taken in a word of the menu - before there was a pause in the conversation. Lisa finally managed to catch her breath, though her heart still pounded in her ears like a bass drum, and really see Jackson sitting in the seat opposite her, sipping a glass of scotch. She should've known he'd have expensive taste. For a moment she felt like she was floating above herself, looking at him. He was good looking, she knew that. In the airport, in the line and at the Tex Mex, she'd been flattered, more than unnerved, by his attention. Though her experience in the parking lot two years beforehand had made her wary of men's attention, it did not make her immune to them, and he had been charming. However, looks ceased to be important when the looker in question was threatening her father's life.

She blinked and realized that he was studying her as closely as she'd been studying him, and swallowed reflexively. He looked too smug for her to comfortable with him looking at her. But he could see her discomfort, and it only seemed to amuse him.

"What are you thinking about, Leese?" His voice was filled with latent laughter. Lisa swallowed again, trying to get past her dry throat.

"I- why am I here?" Her voice scraped out unpleasantly, and his easy grin unnerved her significantly.

"Like I said the other evening, Leese, I wanted to take you out to dinner." Lisa felt her head shake automatically, words tearing themselves from her tongue without her consent.

"It can't be that simple. I just want to know why I'm here, Jackson, can't you just give me that." She shut her mouth with a snap to stop the words, and her breath started to come faster, hissing through her clenched teeth. Jackson leaned back further into his chair, watching her contemplatively, as their entrées were placed in front of them. Once the waiter had wandered off, he tipped his head back slightly, staring into the distance above her head.

"I don't know how to explain this to you, Lisa." His use of her name, rather than the nickname that she couldn't help but flinch at, calmed her somewhat, but she couldn't bring herself to reply, and simply waited for him to continue. He leaned forward over his food, and nodded towards her one dish.

"Eat. I'll talk." She looked at the plate with surprise; having forgotten it contained anything edible whatsoever, and picked up her fork. She began to slowly pick at the meal. She couldn't stop herself glancing at him for approval. He gave a bland smile. "I'm not entirely sure how to begin. I'm not really sure how it happened. Did you know you're the first job I've ever fucked up this badly on?" She flinched at his language, but shook her head when he looked at her for a response, and continued to eat her food, though she couldn't taste a bite.

"That's an important event in my life. There's always been the chance before. I like leaving the door open a crack, just to see if the person even runs the right way. Of course I can always slam the door shut in their faces if they did." He grinned at that, apparently contemplating fond memories. Lisa couldn't help thinking of what getting the door slammed in their face must have felt like for the people the jobs were affecting.

"You were the first who got through. You might not understand that, but I'm good at what I do, Leese," he grinned at her, like they were old friends, "I'm good at what I do, and you bet me." He leaned further towards her. "You were intelligent, and resourceful, and incredibly lucky." He grinned and visions of what would've happened if she hadn't been lucky flew through Lisa's head. Jackson sat back again. "So I wanted to take you out to dinner." Then, as if that was an appropriate conclusion to the thread of the conversation, he sat back, picked up his fork, and began to eat. Lisa's jaw dropped open. The waiter came over and asked how their meal was going, and she smiled and assured him it was fine on autopilot. Jackson looked up and raised an eyebrow.

"It's very simple, Lisa, men take women out for dinner all the time." Then he returned to his meal.

The conversation turned back to the kind of content it had at the beginning of the night. All the while Lisa's head was buzzing. It couldn't be that simple. He had to have something over. But that meant she couldn't make him angry, so she went along with the conversations he introduced, which never seemed to get too personal on either side, and when he criticized her for becoming a shut-in, and informed her of Keefe's death, she swallowed her despair, and continued the night as if they were just two people out for dinner. At the end of the night he drove her back to her apartment, and walked her to her door, and she had made no more sense of the night. But she was still convinced he must have something to hold over her head if she didn't do as he wanted, so she let him kiss her on the cheek, agreed to go out again the following week, and watched him walk away in shock.

**Armamentarium**

_ahr-muh-men-TAIR-ee-um_

1. the total store of avaliabe resources:  
a. the equipment (as drugs or instruments) and methods used in an activity or rofession, expecially in mecidine.  
b. factual, experimental, and speculative.

2. array (as of materials); collection.

3. essential componants; apparatus.


	11. Armamentarium

**Armamentarium**

_ahr-muh-men-TAIR-ee-um_

1. The total store of avaliabe resources:  
a. the equipment (as drugs or instruments) and methods used in an activity or profession, especially in medicine.  
b. factual, experimental, and speculative.

2. Array (as of materials); collection.

3. Essential components; apparatus.

One (1) Skirt

One (1) pair of plain beige tights

Two (2) Shirts – one wrap top, and one singlet.

Two (2) Heeled shoes.

One (1) Unexpected Tragic Back story.

_And, of course_, Jackson thought as he stared down at the list of things that Lisa Reisert had immediate access to when he trapped her on the plane, _one brain, more devious than expected._ He slid the piece of paper aside – what Lisa Reisert had _had_ was not important. He was far more interested in what she had _gained._

One (1) trip to the Airplane Bathroom, holding a toilet, sink, mirror, napkins, and soap – used as an attempt to alert other passengers.

One (1) Novelty Pen, gained from another passenger, most likely when he was distracted while reinforcing the image of a 'Bathroom Quickie' – used as a weapon.

One (1) Stolen Van, from the Airport Drop-Off zone – used as transport.

One (1) Hockey Stick, from her old bedroom in her father's home – used as a weapon.

Two (2) Phones, one his own mobile, the other the house phone, one used to inform key people of the attack on the Keefe family, the other to call local authorities.

Not to mention an overprotective father who knew how to shoot a gun. Jackson leaned back from the desk and stretched, wincing slightly as the new skin on his chest pulled. Lisa Reisert had upgraded herself. She had previously been someone who Charles Keefe would trust the word of when his hotel room was changed. Now she was someone who'd saved the life of him and his family – a little more important. She had come across as someone who knew the way to get up in the world. Jackson was well aware that the best way was to step on someone – and Lisa Reisert had stepped on him. So, though he was well aware that being asked to retrieve and contain the bargaining chip was a significant step down from being the puppeteer of the plan, when he learned exactly who he would be spending his time with, he was rather alright with his circumstances.

The plan was, thankfully, a good deal simpler than the last time he'd had to deal with the girl. She lived in an apartment building, in a single bedroom apartment, and the rooms above hers were for sale. He knew her work schedule off by heart – to his surprise she seemed to have settled back into a routine after her 'flight from hell' as the media had called it. He'd gotten a good look at the locks on the buildings, and the block security as a whole – minimal, of course – when he'd posed as a buyer. As Lisa worked a night shift once a week, there was a high chance of her being alone in the parking lot when she arrived home (Jackson intended to increase that chance by knocking out the guard, but that was beside the point). As there would be likely no witnesses, it would be fairly easy to use an incredibly useful chemical called chloroform, and, as Lisa would be unconscious during her transportation from garage a small room that contained a toilet, a tiny sink, and a bed that was bolted to the floor, Jackson couldn't imagine she'd be able to do much to fuck it up for him.

Jackson stood across the room from where Lisa Reisert was slowly twitching into consciousness onto of the bed that was bolted to the ground (to his own disgust he'd checked several times that none of the bolts would give). He legs were protesting – he wasn't exactly physically large, she'd taken longer than he's expected to wake up after he'd had to carry her in, and he refused to let himself be sitting, whether on the small toilet sans seat or on the floor, when she woke up. It was simply unbecoming. Her eyelids finally flickered open, and Jackson reveled in the fearful expression that crossed her face as she took in her surroundings, and memories rushed back to her. She sat up slowly, eyes scanning the room before they hit him; her entire being seemed to freeze. He barely restrained himself from smiling.

"Welcome to your new home, Ms. Reisert." He saw her throat work for several moments before anything actually emerged.

"How …?" was all she managed to get out, eyes unnaturally wide. Jackson raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not sure what your question is referring to." When all she managed in response was a stuttered combination of 'You' and 'here', he heaved a sighed and walked casually towards the bed, enjoying the sight of her scrambling away to press against the headboard, and placed his hands on the end of it, leaning slightly forwards. "If your question is referring to me being in this room, I am here because there is a job involved. If you refer to my presence being elsewhere than a cell or grave, I point you towards the police, who are not quite ready to face the embarrassment that would fall upon them if the news escaped that a highly dangerous, and heavily injured, prisoner escaped." He let a small, predatory grin distort his features, and watched her press herself harder against the headboard. "If your question is more existential, I really can't help you."

She didn't say anything, just stared at him, and, instead of enjoying it like he had been, Jackson began to find her pathetic expression rather distasteful. He let the foot of the bed go and stepped back. "Meals will be provided three times a day, and I can bring you toiletries on the condition that you use them only as directed and return them as soon as they are used." He let a small smile which, under any other circumstances could have been seen as reassuring, curve his mouth. "Call. and I will hear you."

As he left he paused in the hallway outside the room, where most of the wall was taken up by a one way window. Reisert remained curled against the headboard of the bed. Jackson studied her for a moment before deciding that yes; taking away her shoes _had_ been a good decision, and continuing into the house.

Three days passed with no trouble. They didn't exactly pass quickly – the only thought that kept Jackson from going stir crazy was the fact that he wasn't the one locked in a bare room without even books or television to pass the hours. The upper part of the house looked like any in suburban Miami – no one on the outside would guess it had a hostage in the heavily renovated basement. The first day she'd asked him repeatedly why she was there, but he refused to tell her anything. It wasn't like he knew the grand details of the plan anyway – it was something about blackmail, and money changing hands. Sometimes he wondered if she thought it was about assassination or murder again, and whether or not the truth (if she ever found out what it was) would cheapen the experience. For his part, Jackson brought her food, on paper plates and with plastic cutlery, and a toothbrush twice a day (he squeezed the toothpaste on himself, and didn't bring the tube in – in his mind the brush itself was dangerous enough), and tried to ignore the fact that he was a glorified babysitter.

Later he would curse his fatal flaw – he relaxed when things were going well, and let himself be distracted. It was exactly what she'd taken advantage of on the plane. He really should have seen it coming. She used the exact same structure – an emotional moment followed by using some sort of ridiculous every day item as a weapon. He'd been worried about the toothbrush because it reminded him a little too much of the pen she'd managed to grab the last time they'd worked together. However it had no sharp points, so he had stopped thinking of it as a threat. When she'd bent over, hands on the sink, gripping and releasing the toothbrush, and getting mint paste all over one hand, he'd thought she was breaking slowly, letting the emptiness of the routine get to her. He hadn't been expecting her to turn around and swing her toothpaste covered hand directly into his eyes. His eyes, though they turned bloodshot, and would have trouble focusing properly for several minutes, didn't sting as much as his pride.

It was a small lead, but sadly it was enough. Of course it was increased by the fact that as soon as she could get her hands on a projectile she used it – one of his spare shoes lying neatly by the door the house hit him in the head as soon as he emerged from the doorway into the main house. Then she disappeared out the open front door. He snarled, and turned to see that the mobile phone and keys that had been sitting on the coffee table were gone, and ran to the front door to see the BMW that had been parked in front of the house pulling away with a screech. He ran to the kitchen and pulled a drawer open, to find that the spare keys were still there. He grabbed the relevant one, and ran to the garage, where a second car was kept. He sped after her, hunched over the steering wheel, and feeling more manic by the second. He managed to keep her in sight, though she was speeding just as fast as he was. He cursed as she reached a motorway several cars ahead of him; he'd never been good at chases, and he needed to get her back to the house soon.

Terror was obviously serving Lisa well, and Jackson could feel his focus narrowing, until all that remained was the BMW. Finally his superior driving skills paid off, and there were no more cars in between them. Unfortunately he didn't notice that there were still cars on either side, especially at the enormous intersection where the light changed as he sped after the other car. There was a cacophony of honking, and Jackson turned, thinking _no fucking way I'm going to die in a car cra_- before all thoughts ended.

_Next time:_** Arriviste**

_ah-ree-veest_

1. One who is bent on 'arriving', i.e. on making a good position for himself in the world; a pushing or ambitious person, a self-seeker.

2. A person who has recently acquired unaccustomed status, wealth, or success, especially by dubious means and without earning concomitant esteem.

3. One who employs any means however questionable or unscrupulous to achieve success: an aggressive pushing person: parvenu, upstart.


End file.
